One could argue that the greatest preseason victory comes in merely avoiding injury, at least if you’re a player with a solidified NHL job. That seemed to be especially true for the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night, as CSNWashington.com reports that Alex Ovechkin barely avoided a collapsing piece of glass at Baltimore’s 51-year-old 1st Mariner Arena.

“Watching the replay, that was very scary,” Capitals coach Adam Oates said. “I think that’s what happens when you don’t play in a building for a while. But it didn’t happen again, so good for that.”

That would have been a pretty awful birthday gift for Ovechkin, who turned 28 today.

It’s a real shame that the city of Baltimore allocates their funding elsewhere and cannot come up with a game plan for either a new arena or improvements upon this one in an effort to lure hockey to Baltimore. It’s widely known in this area that a major portion of season ticket holders for the caps live out in Baltimore, Harford and AA county, all surrounding the city. From they view alone it would make much more sense to have a local team but alas… It would never happen. I cannot foresee the Caps franchise being okay with losing a bulk of their fan base to a new market team in their backyard. Look how long it took for DC to get baseball and there are STILL ongoing issues between Angelos and the Nats. But I guess only time will tell…

banshee950 - Sep 18, 2013 at 6:54 AM

you seem like a knowlegable Baltimore fan, was this building the Baltimore Civic Center years ago? I was a kid in MD in the late 70’s early 80s and caught some Skipjacks and Blast games there. The game was not telivised in Boston and I doubt I’d remember what the place looked like anyway.
Enjoy the Caps this season!

All of the stoners from the 70’s remember their music, love-in’s and who they got their sh*t from. 40 years later, their brains are like mush from all of the dope and can only remember their hallucinogen induced past. Guarantee you he is in one of those iconic Woodstock pictures of all of the morons covered in muddy feces!

8man - Sep 18, 2013 at 7:34 AM

I live in Baltimore, am a Bruins fan and regularly see events at the arena. And I was there last night. The game is being rebroadcast on CSN later this morning. It’s a deteriorating venue and not just the building. Because there are no regular sporting events and only concerts, ice shows and circuses, they don’t have a real captive staff to maintain the facility. And it is over fifty years old.

Last night’s game was an attempt to energize the potential fan base in Baltimore for the Caps. No one has illusions about luring any pro team at any level to that venue to play. The convention center needs to be expanded as well. The answer for an arena is something new in one of the surrounding counties. And even with that, I doubt this town could support a pro hockey franchise. It would have to be an AHL team.